Champion California Bar Failure?

This is slightly off-topic, but does anyone remember the name of the guy who failed the California Bar something like 35 times before finally passing it?

I think it was posted here but a search turns up nothing.

 

re: Champion Bar Failure

I found the answer myself after some digging:

It happened with the frequency and regularity of the equinoxes. Every year, twice a year, year in and year out, Maxcy Filer took the California bar examination. Every year, twice a year, he failed it. Every year, twice a year, his wife, Blondell, filled out the form for the next go-round, and he'd begin studying again.

<snip>

The results of the February 1991 test, the 48th exam he'd taken since 1966, arrived, as the February test results always did, in late May. Mr. Filer left the envelope for someone else to open, as he also always did. This time his son Anthony, a lawyer himself, did the honors as Mr. Filer went into the living room to watch "Matlock." Soon, Andy Griffith was not the only older lawyer in the house.

"I heard all this commotion -- 'Daddy passed the bar! Daddy passed the bar!'​

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE4D6153EF930A2575AC0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print

 

Some states have rules that limit the number of times you can take the Professional Engineering exam (usually 3-4). NCEES, the national organization that develops the exams, is trying to coordinate with all state boards so that such limits are enforced nationwide. I wouldn't be surprised if other professional licensing programs have similar rules.

 

re: repeat bar exam takers

There's something to be said for limiting the number of times someone takes an exam. Since any exam tests a finite amount of knowledge, take it enough times and the questions you know the answers to will finally show up.